From a letter to friends.
Life in China . Can you
believe I have been here for close to 10 months.
I’m in Yixing in Jiangsu province, which is near Suzhou and
Hanghzhou. 2 very beautiful cities. We are also 2 ½ hours from Shanghai by fast
train, which is great.
It has been a very steep learning curve. Here is an update
· My
mandarin is still VERY basic. Since I’ve
decided I wont be staying beyond a year, I have stopped learning which makes
life much easier. Previously I was doing
1 hour study a day.
· We Chat
is just part of everyday life. It is so
much better than Facebook.
· I haven’t
used money for weeks and pay everything on WePay.
· Have
bought things on TaoBao but can’t negotiate that on my own. The gorgeous young
women I work with help me.
· Haven’t
used maetwan (not sure how to spell
that)
· Have
watched You Tube of Jack Ma the founder of Alibaba and find him fascinating. Within a few years, Alibaba will be the 5th
largest economy in the world. I cannot
quite grasp that. A company will be the 5th largest economy ahead of
so many countries.
· I’ve also
learnt the frustrations of relying
mostly on a VPN to communicate with family and friends. The internet in my apartment is
TERRIBLE. It is sooooo frustrating.
· I had no
idea tea was such a big think in China.
I’d heard of the rituals around tea in Japan and I’m sure it is at least
as strong here. I feel tea is treated
with the reverence of fine French wine. Before
drinking a cup of tea, your host will tell you about where it has come from
etc. Different areas are known for
different kinds of tea. Every home and
most business has a tea table with all the accoutrements necessary. And tea can
be very expensive. Yixing where I live is famous for the purple clay, which is
used to make teapots. It’s fascinating
to see teapots made, they are not made on a pottery wheel, but every process is
hand done. And apprenticeship to make
teapots can be about 6 years.. There
would be about 80 different tools used in the process. Many of them are hand made of wood and quite
beautiful
· Dinshan is a town just near Yixing. It is the teapot capital of China. The population is probably 500,000 people and
virtually every family and business is related to tea. And there can be big money in making
teapots. A pot made by a master can
fetch up to $20,000. I love the fact that
artisans can make a decent living out of their craft. I’ll have to take some
photos of the warehouse I visit there, it is huge. There are all kinds of
electrical appliances for heating water and keeping tea hot and some of the
accessories that go with tea are beautiful works of art in themselves and don’t
have to be used for tea. I especially
love tea trays. Most are of beautiful
carved woods. I also love the bamboo
ones that tea officionados scoff at because being bamboo they don’t last long
when continually exposed to water. But I
keep my ear-rings in one small tea tray (they have a lid) and have a beautiful
tea box which will come home with me.
Tea pots, tea cups (the tiny ones) , tea utensils including
tweezers,and knives Tea caddys, tea pets, (these are made of clay and can be
frogs, dragons, pigs, all kinds of animals that sit on the tea tray – must
admit, I don’t quite “get” the tea pet thing)
Appliances for heating water, keeping teapots warm, Jugs to pour the tea into before pouring into
your cup, tea strainers , a long fabric runner that goes along the tea tray,
snack bowls, a larger bowl for keeping the teacups in covered in water.
I have found people to be incredible welcoming and generous. Though I will say being an older white woman
may be part of that. The experience is
very different to Laos in that this town (Yixing) has virtually no foreigners
and it’s in the top 10 of wealthy cities in China. Common cars in my
community are VW, Audi and Mercedes. You see Gucci and Louis Vuitton handbags
in class and Hermes scarves and Cartier watches. For me, teaching wise it's
much better than Laos: there is curriculum and structure, other teachers to
bounce ideas off and also importantly an income.
I really do enjoy many of my students and I think Webi is a
reasonable place to work. I won’t renew my contract. It is a
little lonely, hardly anyone speaks English. After work and on my days off, I
could go the whole time without anyone to speak to, so I make great efforts to
get out. I could chose to go to a larger
city where there would be more expats but then you have the crowds and long
commutes to work. In Yixing I walk to
work in 10-15 minutes. Thankfully, I am at a time in life where I have other
options.
I have made I’d say 3 good friends, two of them speak great
English. They are women with families
and commitments, so only have limited time to spend with me. Because my
days off are Monday and Tuesday, every few weeks they take a morning or
afternoon off work (sometimes even a whole day) and we go on adventures.
We are all seeing places we have never seen before. The last big adventure was the day picking
tea. Often on days off I visit chao Hong a lovely woman who makes tea
pots. We have so little language in
common, but with the aid of the translation app, have lots of fun. I always come
home feeling happy.
I have found our local library (Central Goldfields) to be stunning.
Certainly saved my sanity here in China . (I am a little prone to exaggeration!)
I find it fascinating that I can borrow ebooks and audio books all the
way from Castlemaine Australia.
One audio book that I recently listened to is Zoe Morrison’s,
Music and Freedom. I LOVED the voice of the woman who read the story. Is it something from childhood, the joy of
being read to. I’m not saying it is “the perfect book” but I
liked it. Strange thing happened with it too. I was sitting up in
bed when the book finished and the acknowledgements were read out, and my
friend Deb was on the list of people she thanked. It brought “home” right
into my bedroom in Yixing.
Currently I’m reading an ebook forensic psychologist, Tim
Watson-Munro wrote about his life. He
has assessed people like Julian Knight, Alan Bond, Martin Bryant and some of
Melbourne’s underworld figures. He also
had a $2000 a week cocaine addiction and was deregistered for a few years as a
result.
I’ve also said before how much I love the radio national app. I listen all the time to the Arts Hub and a
couple of other programs. I probably
know as much about books and arts at home as most of my friends.
Spring here was the most stunning I have ever experienced I
suggest it is because this part of the world has enough water, so different to
Central Victoria. We know many of the plants and flowers. The streets and
highway verges really are works of art in terms of the plantings.
Magnolias were the first trees to flower - and forsythia. Then the blossoms, plums,
cherry, peach etc. Then the roses, and azaleas - I have seen azaleas
growing in the wild. Now the oleanders are quite lush, a word I don’t
associate with them at home.. As stunning as the blossoms are, is the
growth on the trees and bushes. Some things seem to grow inches overnight
when it rains.. There is a form of box (that’s what I think it is) and
the branches were drooping they were that heavy with the new growth. All
the fruits are growing now and the crepe myrtle are coming into flower. When I arrived I saw many plantings of these
trees that had been cut back to the bare branches. Just a straight trunk with a few chopped
branches. I was wondering if they might
be crepe myrtle, only because of the unusual trunk they have. I think they will be stunning. I spent 5 hours walking in the Zhongshan park
in Nanjing last days off. I didn’t know
there could be so many shades of green.
The colours, shapes and textures were stunning.
At the beginning of summer the lotus blossomed which was beautiful.
I am very pleased that being here for a year, I will see all the seasons
Bonsai
came from here before it went to Japan.
Many of the plants are real works of art. It’s the ideal way of gardening when most
people live in apartments. I want to
have a go when I get back home.
I’m thinking its time to come home and move back into my house..
(but NOT time to finish travelling) Maybe I’ll teach English on
line and travel overseas a few months at a time, who knows. Work Away and
WOOFING might make that possible.
My contract finishes at the beginning of November . Off to Japan for 2 weeks and then Laos for a
month or so. Then home.
I’ve raved on and on. Thanks for listening.
I will finish now. The VPN
is “down” so this may not send today.
Love
Marg
PS spent last days off in Wuzhen a very beautiful canal town. I’ll
attach some photos.
